Did you know it is required by law in the state of Montana that residents grow backyard vegetable gardens? Yes, sir, and -oh- don’t try to fight it. The punishment for failure to garden is the dreaded “Wrangle and Dangle”. You see, in each city and town across Montana there is a town “Roper” whose job it is to patrol the streets for offending residents. Whenever a resident is found to be out of compliance- like if he is unable to hit the spittoon during a roadside chewing tobacco check, or, if upon inspection, his legs do not meet the minimum required bow set forth by the state, or, for our purposes, a place of residence lacks a prominently displayed vegetable garden- it is the town’s Roper who exercises Montana’s own special form of discipline.
Wrangling and Dangling is simple enough. The Roper lassoes an offending resident and binds his hands and feet. The perpetrator is then flung over the back of the Roper’s horse and taken to the Town Square where a live prairie dog is tied to his head. The “perp” is then hoisted into the air by the ankles until he is four to six feet above the ground. He is given a hearty push that gets him swinging and causes the prairie dog to squeal in terror. The prairie dog’s cry alerts the community to the presence of a new dangler. Parents send their children, armed with broomsticks and lengths of knotted rope, to the dangle site. The children take swings at the dangler until the prairie dog is knocked from his head, at which time the dangler is released and free to go.
Having seen it first hand, I did not want to be the next in a long line of danglers. I planted a garden. By comparison, my little plot was nothing against the luscious, bursting gardens that adorned the backyards of my neighbors. I begged and pleaded with the folks next door for help with my plants, but they refused. It occurred to me later that I was the weakest link. To them I was a convenient diversion and the perfect Wrangle and Dangle fall guy.
Determined, I continued to nurse my struggling patch of edibles. In a month’s time I was floored- absolutely ecstatic- to see my garden growing beautifully. I had tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, watermelon and cucumbers. Much to the Roper’s chagrin, all my vegetables were thriving and well within city code.
Then one morning I got up early, as was my routine, to water the garden. I threw the heavy coils of garden hose over my shoulder and lurched sleepily across the lawn to my infant vegetables. Gazing at my garden through droopy eyes, I became more and more alert with each step toward it. My garden was in shambles. Miraculously, my crop of carrots was untouched, but everything else bore record of a tragic scene- a troubled salad shooter meeting a sad, self-inflicted end.
I weeded my way through the culinary carnage, unsure of what to make of it all. Though it appeared the Veggie Tales had been dropped at Normandy Beach on D-Day, I knew there was a simpler explanation. Then, suddenly, from beneath the cover of a large broccoli leaf, a rabbit lunged at my crotch. As if frozen in time, I watched as the bunny left the ground with its extremely large front teeth chomping toward a part of me I previously determined was not produce.
In a stroke of luck the rabbit missed its target by a few inches and flew between my legs. I followed its trajectory with my head until I found myself falling end over end in a somersault that left me flat on my back in a bed of salad. Upside down I watched the rabbit scurry out of sight.
Later that day I was on the phone with my dad explaining to him the events as they unfolded, hoping for infinite and immeasurable quantities of dad wisdom to be bestowed upon me. “How do I get rid of a pesky rabbit?” I wondered. My dad had a pretty good idea. He asked, “What about wolf piss?”
Predator urine. Yeah. That could work. I praised my dad for thinking like a Montanan and set out, bucket in hand, to find an incontinent wolf. As it turns out, however, wolves with bladder disorders are extremely hard to come by
in my part of Montana. It was the other side of the state I needed to be in.
I turned to my computer. Bingo. There it was. You can buy any kind of pee imaginable over the internet. Just one click of the mouse and I was swimming in wolf, badger, John Mellencamp, Sasquatch, and just about any other sort of pee I could think of. The only issue was how expensive it was to purchase. Did you know an 8-ounce bottle of platy-piss is, like, thirty dollars?
Searching for a creative alternative, I devised a plan. Though my neighbors disapproved, I gulped down a gallon of Sunny-D while aiming my own special blend of “rabbit repellant” along the perimeter of my garden. I continued to apply my “bladder batter” over the next several days while I transplanted new veggies.
I soon found out that rabbits hardly consider humans to be predators. My invisible force field didn’t work. In fact, it might have even attracted the rabbit back into the garden; I eat a lot of asparagus.
Now, back at square one, I turned again to my trusty computer. I came across all sorts of ideas, the best of which required erecting a chicken wire fence. I didn’t want to go to all that trouble so I kept on digging. Finally, I stumbled across a pretty interesting alternative. The suggestion was to sprinkle cayenne pepper on the leaves of the plants. Rabbits, which sniff their food before eating it, would theoretically reject the tainted delicacies.
My spice cabinet produced a full, unopened bottle of cayenne pepper. I tasted it on my finger and- sure enough- it was pretty potent. I had no desire to sniff it, personally, and figured Bugs and the gang would feel the same way. Maybe I went overboard- I don’t know- but I applied the entire bottle of cayenne pepper to the leaves of my newly planted vegetables.
As pessimistic as I am, I fully expected my vegetables to be gone by the time I went out to water them the next morning, so it was no surprise to find the rabbit back in my yard as I rounded the corner with my garden hose. What got my attention, however, was that the bunny was flopping across my lawn like a fish out of water. He executed half and full gainers that were so perfect the great Greg Louganis, himself, couldn’t reproduce them, even if he was three times gayer.
The rabbit, as he thrashed about, made the most curious sounds. With each undulation he belched a noise similar to when a can of whipped cream is nearly empty and the last traces of cream are spat from its bowels by short bursts of residual gas. That noise was accompanied by another, not unlike the screech of a balloon when you pull the elastic tight just below its opening. Working in concert, the sound projected from this tiny bunny certainly was not the one I typically associated with large trapezing rodents.
I watched in amazement as my mind wrapped around the scene before me. Then, as though a switchboard operator finally connected my call, I laughed so hard my knees buckled and my spleen ached. I snorted and dang near swallowed my tongue watching this acrobatic bunny blow itself across my yard in a violent sneezing fit. In each place the rabbit landed he left little tufts of fur. He showered the sky with tiny poo pellets that followed him, like a comet’s tail, from one place to the next.
He finally hit the ground with a resounding thud and didn’t move . . . and didn’t move . . . and didn’t move. I cautiously approached him. The rabbit remained motionless, a battered, lifeless heap. No doubt he was drooling through an endless forest of rabbit treats in that great big vegetable garden in the sky.
My sympathy ran only so deep, I’m afraid. I picked the dead rabbit up by his hind legs and dropped him over my neighbor’s fence. Then I picked up my garden hose and continued to water, careful not to wash any cayenne pepper from the leaves of my veggies. Later that day I paid a trip to the grocery store to stock up on cayenne pepper. The clerk asked why I was buying so many bottles. I told him it was Wrangle and Dangle repellant.
catalog. Oh, and last week I was stunned to see the lifeless eyes of a freshly shot deer staring back at me from the top of a minivan I was following on the highway. I had to turn on the wiper blades to clear my windshield of blood spatter.
I guess it wouldn’t be so bothersome to be thrown into the bunch with the Clements clan, except they won’t have anything to do with me. To them I am an imposter. A phony. For one thing, I bathe; I don’t own a four wheeler, and not once have I offered a yellow carnation to a “purdy” cousin at the Clements’s family reunion.
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